Islands is a post-apocalyptic SciFi comedy stage production by Graham Porter:
The year is 2512. The human species has survived nuclear amargeddon – sort of. The survivors on a small Pacific island have rebuilt civilization the best they could. An oligargy of ruling intellectuals control the hearts and minds of the population in order to guide it into the future. Everything seems peaceful in this island paradise. But are the citizens as happy as they seem to be? Or are there darker forces at work….
Here’s a heartwarming short film directed by Yves Geleyn that’s sure to put a smile of your face. But if it doesn’t, it’s not because I’m wrong; it’s because you have no soul. Read the rest of this entry
Today’s Gold Box Daily Deal on Amazon is a group of eBooks from Rosetta Books for just 99 cents each: 20 Books Made into Films. Included in that batch are these 7 SF/F titles:
NOTE: This deal is for today only. Grab ‘em while you can. The books can be used not only on Kindle devices, but also any computer and smartphone that has the free Kindle app on it.
Mining Asteroids! Has the future finally arrived? Is this B.S. or not B.S.? Scientist and Sci-Fi author David Brin breaks down the idea into its fascinating ideas, taking a look at how Planetary Resources is planning to obtain metals and fuel by mining asteroids.
Thie one never hit the airwaves…CBS deemed it too racy for 1993 audiences. But now, through the magic of YouTube playlists, you can see it right here. The Elvira Show featured Cassandra Peterson as the Mistress of the Adrk and Katherine Helmond as her Aunt Minerva.
Edward Einhorn and Untitled Theater Company #61 are bringing Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic (and awesome) science fiction novel The Lathe of Heaven to the stage next month. The plan is to use multiple methods of storytelling, including video and operatic songs. To enhance this experience, they are seeking funding via Kickstarter.
The production has been authorized by Ms. Le Guin’s herself, and the Kickstarter page offers a recent interview with her.
The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press has posted the table of contents for their upcoming collection Adventures in Science Fantasy which collects REH’s “sort of science fiction” stories. The 298-page book comes with an introduction by Michael Stackpole and cover art by Mark Schultz
REVIEW SUMMARY: Despite good casting and one or two promising scenes, Burton’s sendup of the classic supernatural soap opera only manages to be an incoherent mess.
MY RATING:
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: After being chained in a coffin by a scorned lover for two hundred years, vampire Barnabas Collins returns to Collinwood manor.
MY REVIEW: PROS: Well, at least it’s better than the trailers; a couple of clever scenes; Burton’s juxtaposition of Gothic and 1970s stylings; a good cast… CONS: …wasted by an aimless script and, despite frantic action, a complete lack of energy. Read the rest of this entry
TANSY RAYNER ROBERTS is the award-winning author of the Creature Court trilogy, consisting of Power and Majesty, The Shattered City and Reign of Beasts. Her short story collection Love and Romanpunk was published by Twelfth Planet Press in 2011. You can find her at her blog, on Twitter as @tansyrr, and on the Hugo-nominated podcast Galactic Suburbia. Tansy lives in Tasmania, Australia with a Silent Producer and two superhero daughters.
Charles Tan: Hi Tansy! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, how did you first get involved with speculative fiction?
Tansy Rayner Roberts: Hi Charles! I’ve always loved SF and fantasy since I was a small child being indoctrinated into Doctor Who fandom at my mother’s knee. I spent most of my teens writing novels and occasionally submitting half-hearted queries to publishers, and then struck it lucky with Splashdance Silver, which won the inaugural George Turner Prize in 1998 and was duly published by Bantam/Transworld. So I’ve been at this a while now… Read the rest of this entry
The finalists for the 2012 John W. Campbell Memorial Award (awarded each year to the best SF novel published in the U.S.) have been announced: Read the rest of this entry
A Hunger for the Infinite, which first appeared in Robert Silverberg’s Far Horizons anthology, is a novella that takes place in the universe of “The Galactic Center Saga”, detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life. Here, the pilots had made it to True Center in order to destroy something, anything, important to the Mechs, but Paris had something else on his mind. A story of the Mantis, and the decline of humans beginning in 3600 AD.
Upcoming4.me has posted the cover art and synopsis of the upcoming novel The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Here’s the synopsis:
The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for…)
1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man’s-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone?
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive—some say mad, others allege dangerous—scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson find a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and . . . a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever.
The first novel in an exciting new collaboration between Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and the acclaimed SF writer Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to the ends of the earth—and far beyond. All it takes is a single step…
The 352-page hardcover releases in the U.S. and U.K. on June 19, 2012.
Three preconceptions I had about manga, before I started reading the stuff, were that it had:
a puzzling fascination with teenage girls, extending into their sexual objectification, and a sideline in the oddly child-like depiction of adult characters
a persistent interest in organic horror – the transformation, corruption or cancerous eruption of the body
wildly complicated, over-extended storylines that require obsessive inclinations and a big bank balance to follow.
My conclusion, after recent paddling about in the margins of the manga ocean, is that all of them are true. But only sometimes, no more so than any of the easy generalisations that could be made about US or European comics, and often in ways that are surprising.
The manga I want to talk about now is shortish – a mere four concise volumes – so that’s the preconception about over-extended storylines quashed. But it’s definitely preoccupied with the transformation of organic forms, and is largely about teenage girls (though thankfully restrained on the overt sexualisation front).
“At this very moment, your brain is accomplishing an amazing feat — reading.”
- Stanislas Dehaene
“[R]eading does not begin or end when eyes apprehend the words on the page, but long before that and indeed long after it.”
- Michael Burke
Last week I sketched out a too-brief examination of the basic cognitive processes of reading. This week I want to elaborate on that, and start filling in the picture of how we read. As fascinating as those processes are (and there is certainly more to discuss about them), in the end they are only one aspect of the practice of reading. And, while they demonstrate how we read, they only hint at why and what we read. Reading is a doubly amazing activity because it is not only an unforeseen adaptation that changed how humanity lives, it has an enduring power and utility garnered from the puzzles and connections it creates and reveals. As Oliver Sacks has noted, “Writing, a cultural tool, has evolved to make use of the inferotemporal neurons’ preference for certain shapes” and the process of reading functions in dialogue with that retooling of function. I think that “evolved” is a somewhat loaded term, but the fact that writing and reading developed culturally rather than biologically has to be kept in mind, so that we do not lose sight of the innovative core of these practices and the ways in which they have been transformed over their history.
Manybookshave beenwritten aboutthat history, but I want to briefly touch on the points that seem most relevant to discussing the reading of fiction and fantastika. What began as a mnemonic aid has become a practice that can shift us from the world around us into one unfolding in our heads by giving our predilections for speculation, prediction, and adaptive social organization ample fodder and an outlet for sharing them with others. What made humans start to read and write? There are multiple theories, but most likely symbols were used as a tool for accounting. As human social and political systems became larger, more elaborate, and more hierarchical, there was a growing need to keep track of obligations. “Initially it was the simple faculty of extracting visual information from any encoded system and comprehending the respective meaning” (Fischer, A History of Reading, p. 12), but the use of this faculty supported a number of social changes that led to the gradual elaboration of these systems. From simple marks denoting a number or symbolic linkage more sophisticated symbols, such as abjads and ideograms, were developed to meet new needs of information transmission. At this point, the marks denoted additional meanings, such as sounds and words, representing aspects of spoken language and, eventually, distinct ideas. Read the rest of this entry
I ran across this yesterday and it really caught my eye. Check out the trailer for Posthuman, a supposed 6 minute short film:
follows Terrence and his dog Nine in an adrenalized world of espionage, assassins, and out of control super science.
Terrence agrees to help Kali, an escaped test subject from a black ops ESP test lab, in her plan to free the last surviving imprisoned test subject before he is tested to termination.
The assault on the lab is fast paced and intense as Terrence uses every hacker trick he knows in an effort to destroy the base’s defenses and give Kali the opportunity to free her tortured lab mate, Benjamin.
The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press has posted the 
